What Can Happiness Research Tell Us About Altruism? Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel

Johannes Schwarze and Rainer Winkelmann
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Johannes Schwarze: University of Bamberg

No 1487, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Much progress has been made in recent years on developing and applying a direct measure of utility using survey questions on subjective well-being. In this paper we explore whether this new type of measurement can be fruitfully applied to the study of interdependent utility in general, and altruism between parents and children in particular. We introduce an appropriate econometric methodology and, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 2000-2002, find that the parents’ self-reported happiness depends positively, albeit not very strongly, on the happiness of adult children who moved out.

Keywords: fixed effects; extended family; utility function; ordered probit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 D6 D64 J10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2005-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Published - published in: Journal of Population Economics, 2011, 24 (3), 1033-1051

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Related works:
Working Paper: What Can Happiness Research Tell Us about Altruism?: Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel (2005)
Working Paper: What can happiness research tell us about altruism? Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel (2005)
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